Maybe you feel so negatively about them because of how you choose to define them (idealists). They are neither liberal nor conservative, nor are they the loudest in the room, or ivory tower dwellers. They are not do-gooders, nor are they naive.
I wonder if your perception belies you own biases more than reality. Idealists do not label themselves as such; they are thinkers, period.
And (mostly/often) the proposals offered today that get soundly rejected as 'idealistic' turn out to be tommorrow's only 'pragmatic' solution to the issue@hand.
Hi: I concur in the accuracy of all your observations and to a large extent with your proposed solutions. But i would also like to make the point that your (and others) comments here are over-focused on the least-significant bits of the net: the political and pseudo-social areas. Whether its godlikeproductions, or talkingpointsmemo, people like to rant and (paraphrasing Anais Nin ) they see things not as they are, but who they are.
The bulk of the net/web is not so hostile (see my other post) and focused largely on more supportive subjects related to interests, problems, research, etc.... This is the best part of the net, too often overshadowed by the rabble making the most noise.
Hi: On the surface, what you say may have merit; but i would like to make a counter-point. Where your proposal may produce better behavior related to some issues (social,political,..) much of the net has no bearing to those issues. For instance, I have been spending a lot of time searching the net on issues related to allergic food reactions, gut disorders, Proctalgia Fugax, c.difficle, etc..
After pouring thru 'professional' MD sites, research sites, etc.. my trail ultimately lead me to wrongdiagnosis.com and earthclinic.com.
Wow, talk about people freely discussing their (mostly painful) conditions! Made me want to go out and purchase "mysorebutt.com" Point being that although many posters were non-anon, its easy to understand why one would want to be. Very odd (and comforting) reading sally123 describing the shape of her stool to billybongXYZ.
Med-help is just one area where anon is necessary, I can think of dozens of other areas where the commonweal is enriched by anon.
You got my vote! I've been saying same for some time now. Change the model and watch the data towers melt like a witch under water:)
What I've been (and am) proposing is to turn net-neutrality on its ear by forcing ISPs to permit its customers to run servers from their home sub-nets. Then have a linux dist available that would have easy2use configs for setup and maintenence; focusing on gpg/tls/https/smpts etc..
Anyone could install the OS (even as an appliance) and any number of client apps that may or may not be port443 centric. These users could then entangle themselves within their own social circles; adding one more layer of 'distrust' for every extra degree bringing them closer to Kevin Bacon.
This is totally doable now, would move linux lightyears closer to the year of its desktop and offer endusers a more secure, reliable computing environment.
I rather prefer that information be copied, and copied, and copied some more. Sure, it degrades, but it can be re-constructed. Far better than single-source that can vanish on a whim.
"in the end we still read"..... I concur that we will always be linking but i wonder about reading. Not a futurist or sci-fi fan, but seeing how visual everything is becomming, how much shorter attention span seem to be, the decline of the written word may become a welcome thing if some 'osmosisy' (?) device were to come along and turn it (maybe even language) into a old technology. There go pages, books, articles. Replaced by some periferal storage device that knows what we need to know and how to get it there.
Until then, well, you're so right. And considering that its more about internetworking and not personal computing in general, that meta layers like tag-clouds and sparklines will evolve.
I'm waiting for the day when ISPs can no longer prevent end-users from running servers and linux dists are created that have gpg/ssl/tls/https/smtps as turnkey apps (combined with popular webapps) that decentralizes the current model of data fortresses posing as facebook and twitter.
I sometimes wonder if visionaries fail to grasp that what works best arrises from the chaos of trial and error more than any blueprint.
"and you can see a ribbon or beam connecting documents together...." Like softlinks? Thinking about this, i cannot think of personal computing in any meaningful way without the 'atomicity' (?) of files (nix) (and directories); combined with liberal use of soft/hard links. This is for personal use, on my home sub-net. I (like most probably) work with files more than http; even blog/form entries originate with files, sql work is over CLI. Documents, web-apps are mostly collaboration specific; are abstractions of one form or another, and will evolve with darwinian perfection.
Reading this far down the commentary, I'd like to posit that the next significant evolution of the Internet will happen when everyone connected has the ability to host and run servers. When ISP's are forced to allow unfettered I/O, when computing users can d/l a linux distro that has 'adopted' pgp/tls/ssl/https/smtps that endusers can easily setup and run. Then, the web will be transformed by the changing habits of the participants and in a highly de-centralized way (think flocking)
As for information richness we now have tagging as one meta layer and I suspect 'sparklines' will be the next.
Thanks for the link. What i try to make work is a 2-fold approach that treats robots.txt as almost irrelevant. For scrappers, i use logs to count requests and blacklist them at the firewall. For 'form' spam I use a captcha 1st step that hooks into a back-end RBL checker that runs their IP agains (among others) "pbl.spamhaus.org, sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org, bl.spamcop.net, multi.surbl.org, bl.spameatingmonkey.net"
If they're listed then they're blocked at the captcha. Also, every file I serve tests that the referrer is my site, though I know its easy to spoof.
Its the RBL checking that is most effective and I'm surprised I haven't seen it more widely adopted.
" Totally eliminating US defense spending wouldn't make one bit of difference as to whether or not the US goes broke.
It'd only make it take a bit longer."
Could we just start with finding the missing 2+Bn that Rummy (would have said) went missing 9/10/01?
It might lead to more discovered missing money. Like the unaccounted Bn's sent overseas to the contractors?
" willing to have the balls to tackle both the..." American Exceptionalism complex and perverse belief of "self" entitlements... "neither side is serious" they are serious about keeping their power, wealth, seat at the table...
Our struggles and sufferings are a game to these people. Chips to use in power-plays as they attempt to rise their ladder of success before getting stabbed in the back by their 'friends'.
Their game is wealth extraction. From the companies they run, from any and everybody who is not in their club. 3-houses and a pied-a-terre for he opera season; minimum. Polo and boat-drinks, served, never serving. Unless it comes with hurt.
The Pharma headlines, the Defense black-hole that makes pols go whoring for dollars, buy jobs for the hands-peeps. Guns-n-Drugs - what we do best. We build the tools of destruction and get toxically poisoned for the priv of doing so. This is not a U.S. phenom. It's the NWO, non-national, non-taxable, non-accountable. (sorta like running the perpetual dev/null drive in an earlier story) The cleverness of it all.
I agree with you 100% It would be more than nice to have both liberty and a commonweal strong enough to foster responsibility. It would be the miracle that happens the snake of the oppressors who peddle their "law is the hammer of the ruling class" are finally brought to justice, some kind of justice, any kind of justice. The day that white-collar crime is thought of as more than the the value of its shares, traded in picoseconds while they schmooze in their backrooms.
Your insinuation that 'privatism' is a solution is false on the face of facts. In Corrections, In Edu, in Insc, BigBiz is an extraction industry. We are it's resource. Privatizing has not proved cost-effective without fixing the numbers and skewing the data.
The same internet that enables me to telework to be part of the open/transparent movement, is the one that enables the financiers, ceos, bankers, lawyers, etc. to deal with advantages we'll never know until something hits the fan.
Maybe 8% of the world knows anything about stocks or bonds. Most american's portfolios could just as easily been the savings account offered 40yrs ago. We are also talking about the top 8% of the population. Whose feet don't touch the ground, who are served and live like royality; often for little in exchange for the fealty. That is the picture of entitlement. Of having more than you will ever need or want for; of 'more' being your measure of success among your peers. Consume, grow, crap on something somewhere, move on...
Remove that cancer and the rest of us will happily assume control of our lives and live more responsibily, better educated, fed, treated.
Sometime between tommorrow and 1/2 past never. Hurt demands more hurt. We as a nation are in the hurtlocker.
Great post! Whether it's PHORM for the ads you see on your IPTv settop or the.gov backdoors that scan through the bytes of your life or for the corpocrats to manage and control the risks you pose: That upon which we depend will be our undoing. I have hope the good news is that, in the long run (barring a longnow) centralized datacenters (FB) will become as antiquated as centralized computing in general. It would be easy to do but would require persuasive (political) will.
If ISP's want to play then make them permit running home servers. That's all it would take. Let ubunut, deb, LAMPsters create a secure client-server combo dist that makes it easy to have one's own 'wall', their own ASP services... Break the centralized 'towers' and snooping, evesdropping, spam, ads... fades to black.
Make it easy for the end-user to encrypt their communications on all their devices. OpenID, bitcoins, a candle in the spacecave If ISP/Telco/Mediacom want their version of 'net-neutrality' then make them accept a level playing field. Home servers are no less (perhaps more) secure than the m$ crap currently pawned. Linux and OSS will be rewarded and the abomination that is Redmond will change tune or make fuzzy toys.
I feel this will be an eventuality. I hope it comes sooner than later. My basement is getting too damp and cold.
Nah, his punishment is living to a ripe 150 and mumbling in emacs; which all our adoring spawn will mistake for tongues. Specially enrapt with that one clear rebel-yell (gasp) of a strange and foreign word 'freedom'; long surgically removed from all "Web-ter(Tm)" word-aries (what's diction?) commercially released for non-distribution decades earlier.
Its not about the phone, DB, its about all communications. And to the previous "Its not the government" poster: Of course its not! Its the new face of industrial and corporate espionage; about private intelligence agencies (think Kroll or Carlyle) and "their" ability to fuck up your otherwise rosey day.
The fact that info is shared with their poor bureaucratic cousins is just a loss-leader. So, stop looking at the device and start looking at the bigger conversation.
As for your beef with the word 'free'. You don't have to wrestle with the "want free - need $" hydra if you don't play their game. In proven fact, many people will choose free even if it is not as 'powerful' as commercial. And, in proven fact, it is also true that the free flavor is often better (on balance) due to the very virtues of its 'freeness' Free-as-in:Open, non-propritary, modifyable, hackable, understandable (tax laws). It is, in proven fact, more trustworthy hence more valuable. Which is why M$ and corpo is pushing "linux as the commie OS threat to american pie and democracy" Which is why we tin-foilers don't even want to have to trust ourselves, let alone our wares. If you'd stop looking at the tree and start seeing the forest, you might feel the same way too:)
And WTF? Why the abundance of AC here? Very odd and interesting and sad at the same time
Not really feelin the love, so: Its not about your ability to write code and get money for it. Fact is, despite words to the contrary, its not about money at all. Software is nearly free as it is. M$ gives it away (so to speak) and the likes of sourceforge has turned code into a commodity. "Free" got us all the way from LAMP to (say) Moodle or OpenERM. What previously fetched top dollar (programming skills) now can be had for pennies on the dollar in the 3rd World. Certainly there will be exceptions, but that compiled shit is becomming a ubiquitous as air and water.
Now, this has no effects on YOUR RIGHTS to do what ever you want with what you make. Sell it - give it away - burn it. But if you code for say, righthaven, then its not your code, you cant vouch for it or how it's applied. AND, almost without exception, these for-profit (only) corpo code-shops have proven they cannot be trusted. Shit, we can't even get a transparent E-voting booth. That should say it all.
No Stallman no GNU no GNU no Linux no Linux: MICROCRUFT rules the world! You want evil? How about a stuxnet worm that blows a reactor? (To say nothing of the 10's of millions held hostage to a bug-ridden OS and the slimey cohorts who profit from it at your expense. All you gentle people throwing stones - you're MORONS! Software and the Net have helped cause popular revolutions for anyone who has no voice. The reaction has been to take away freedoms one paper-cut at at time while surveiling and data-mining us into facism. Here's one guy with a proven track-record of standing up, for decades, and all you sniveling retards (Anon no-less) can do is , throw verbal stones in your ignorance. It's been Stallman-vs-BraveNewWorld since the beginning and you're only getting a preview of what the BNW holds in store. AssHats!
Agree fully with these sentiments and am curious to know what other links may exist between.gov and corporate espionage. Not too long ago, a group was charged with stealing email lists from an NGO (sierra club? GP?) and it made me wonder if this was widespread, and if these lists were making the rounds of the 50-or-so fusion centers littering the country. What goes on there, with select civilians being privy to DHS info? Are they reciprocating in kind by utilizing the services of outfits like HBG? I wish anonymous would tackle the fusion centers next cuz sure as holsteins have spots, I'll bet that the 'undesirables' list (lefties, progressives, etc..) is growing and being used in HR depts across the country.
Man, you're reading my mind (and prob a legion of others as well)! Force ISP's to allow their customers to run servers as part of the net-neutrality deal. Then entice end-users with an OS (or appliance) that easily and safely runs those apps you describe (self-publishing via their own servers) that eliminates the 'centrality' of places like FB and the attendant vulnerabilities. Ubuntu, for instance, could roll out a distro that implements GPG/TLS etc.. in a user-friendly way; DYdns could provide IP, RBL checking to block spam; and, most intriguingly: private DNS servers for private sub-netting. Furthering decentralization, to me, is the next evolution of the Net; I hope this plug gets traction.
It sure does! Image linux distros for 'comsumer consumption' whose install includes servers (https, smtp/tls,....) that are sandboxed and enable the end-users to run their own 'facebook's or their own RSS feeds, etc... It would cut out the centralizers like facebook with no hit in functionality or performance; while improving privacy. The biggest feat it would accomplish would be forcing ISP's to permit customers to open up server ports. This would make the 'net-neutrality' outcomes a bit easier to reconcile.
Leveraging it to the full potential would entall forcing ISPs to allow clients to run servers. Doing so would accomplish two things: provide a balance to the net-neutrality argument and liberate peoples' dependency on sites like facebook; as their 'wall' would be internetworked directly from their own hosts. Just a matter of designing apps to do that. Where my hope would be that it would push for greater Linux adoption, having a (linux) device that does the same would be a welcome improvement to the info-society
Hi: Just wanted to say thanks for a great UI/WM/DM I've been using E since day 1 (literally) and continue to enjoy it. I've built from source, tho compiling EFL and makeing edj files still somewhat eludes me. And I usually find myself still running gnome panels on the side. But E17 has proved stable and indispensible on my workstations. I use trans-set at times and would like to see more window transparancy tools, but that's my only lament do date. Thanks for a great contribution to OSS bud. I can't wait to see it up and running on an N900 and other mobile devices.
Hi: Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I agree with much of what you are saying; my only point is that the "American Dream" has become one of diminishing returns. That hard work and determination aside, things have been sliding downhill for 30 years. For every 'recession (80's, 90's, 00's..) the following recovery was only beneficial for the top sectors.
I agree that everyone, regardless of their checkbook, has the ability to contribute and that many children of the rich have used their station for good purpose. My beef was and is that it is not (necessarily) deserved, but is recognized as an entitlement.
Also, fwiw, you assertion of procuring wealth simply by satisfying a demand justifies their riches does not pass the sniff test. Considering that many (certainly not all) of those 'originators of wealth' did so at the expense of the commonweal; from smuggling to land-grabs to calling in the strike-breakers to the genocides of indigenous.
This phenonomon continues to this day. The 'bonus' given to an oil exec for the destruction of the Niger Delta, for a simple example. Wealth is not created in a vacuum. When both sides mutually profit, fine, its deserved. When one side is impoverished thru the use of John Perkins' economic hit men, then its immoral if not criminal. Sad to say, the later is more pronounced than the former for most of the last century.
I agree with much of what you say related to individual potential, I just feel that the playing field is way too skewed to those who have much, much, more than they will ever need.
Hi: Capitalism, at least the global, multi-national, flavor, is the vision (and promise) of private ownership writ large. Considering that roughly 95% of humanity owns no stock whatsoever is proof of its basic failure.
Capitalism is an extraction industry. It takes the resources of the many and moves it into the pockets of the few. It leaves brownfields in its' wake, sometimes very bloody ones at that.
Labor is just their means to an end and the goal of capitalism is to reduce the value of your work, your labor, as close to 0 as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you feel so negatively about them because of how you choose to define them (idealists).
They are neither liberal nor conservative, nor are they the loudest in the room, or ivory tower dwellers. They are not do-gooders, nor are they naive.
I wonder if your perception belies you own biases more than reality. Idealists do not label themselves as such; they are thinkers, period.
And (mostly/often) the proposals offered today that get soundly rejected as 'idealistic' turn out to be tommorrow's only 'pragmatic' solution to the issue@hand.
Hi:
I concur in the accuracy of all your observations and to a large extent with your proposed solutions.
But i would also like to make the point that your (and others) comments here are over-focused on the least-significant bits of the net: the political and pseudo-social areas. Whether its godlikeproductions, or talkingpointsmemo, people like to rant and (paraphrasing Anais Nin ) they see things not as they are, but who they are.
The bulk of the net/web is not so hostile (see my other post) and focused largely on more supportive subjects related to interests, problems, research, etc....
This is the best part of the net, too often overshadowed by the rabble making the most noise.
my .02
Hi:
On the surface, what you say may have merit; but i would like to make a counter-point.
Where your proposal may produce better behavior related to some issues (social,political,..) much of the net has no bearing to those issues.
For instance, I have been spending a lot of time searching the net on issues related to allergic food reactions, gut disorders, Proctalgia Fugax, c.difficle, etc..
After pouring thru 'professional' MD sites, research sites, etc.. my trail ultimately lead me to wrongdiagnosis.com and earthclinic.com.
Wow, talk about people freely discussing their (mostly painful) conditions! Made me want to go out and purchase "mysorebutt.com" Point being that although many posters were non-anon, its easy to understand why one would want to be.
Very odd (and comforting) reading sally123 describing the shape of her stool to billybongXYZ.
Med-help is just one area where anon is necessary, I can think of dozens of other areas where the commonweal is enriched by anon.
my .02
You got my vote! I've been saying same for some time now. Change the model and watch the data towers melt like a witch under water:)
What I've been (and am) proposing is to turn net-neutrality on its ear by forcing ISPs to permit its customers to run servers from their home sub-nets. Then have a linux dist available that would have easy2use configs for setup and maintenence; focusing on gpg/tls/https/smpts etc..
Anyone could install the OS (even as an appliance)
and any number of client apps that may or may not be port443 centric. These users could then entangle themselves within their own social circles; adding one more layer of 'distrust' for every extra degree bringing them closer to Kevin Bacon.
This is totally doable now, would move linux lightyears closer to the year of its desktop and offer endusers a more secure, reliable computing environment.
my .02
I rather prefer that information be copied, and copied, and copied some more. Sure, it degrades, but it can be re-constructed. Far better than single-source that can vanish on a whim.
"in the end we still read".....
I concur that we will always be linking but i wonder about reading. Not a futurist or sci-fi fan, but seeing how visual everything is becomming, how much shorter attention span seem to be, the decline of the written word may become a welcome thing if some 'osmosisy' (?) device were to come along and turn it (maybe even language) into a old technology. There go pages, books, articles. Replaced by some periferal storage device that knows what we need to know and how to get it there.
Until then, well, you're so right. And considering that its more about internetworking and not personal computing in general, that meta layers like tag-clouds and sparklines will evolve.
I'm waiting for the day when ISPs can no longer prevent end-users from running servers and linux dists are created that have gpg/ssl/tls/https/smtps as turnkey apps (combined with popular webapps) that decentralizes the current model of data fortresses posing as facebook and twitter.
I sometimes wonder if visionaries fail to grasp that what works best arrises from the chaos of trial and error more than any blueprint.
"and you can see a ribbon or beam connecting documents together...."
Like softlinks?
Thinking about this, i cannot think of personal computing in any meaningful way without the 'atomicity' (?) of files (nix) (and directories); combined with liberal use of soft/hard links.
This is for personal use, on my home sub-net.
I (like most probably) work with files more than http; even blog/form entries originate with files, sql work is over CLI.
Documents, web-apps are mostly collaboration specific; are abstractions of one form or another, and will evolve with darwinian perfection.
Reading this far down the commentary, I'd like to posit that the next significant evolution of the Internet will happen when everyone connected has the ability to host and run servers. When ISP's are forced to allow unfettered I/O, when computing users can d/l a linux distro that has 'adopted' pgp/tls/ssl/https/smtps that endusers can easily setup and run. Then, the web will be transformed by the changing habits of the participants and in a highly de-centralized way (think flocking)
As for information richness we now have tagging as one meta layer and I suspect 'sparklines' will be the next.
Thanks for the link. What i try to make work is a 2-fold approach that treats robots.txt as almost irrelevant.
For scrappers, i use logs to count requests and blacklist them at the firewall.
For 'form' spam I use a captcha 1st step that hooks into a back-end RBL checker that runs their IP agains (among others)
"pbl.spamhaus.org, sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org, bl.spamcop.net, multi.surbl.org, bl.spameatingmonkey.net"
If they're listed then they're blocked at the captcha.
Also, every file I serve tests that the referrer is my site, though I know its easy to spoof.
Its the RBL checking that is most effective and I'm surprised I haven't seen it more widely adopted.
" Totally eliminating US defense spending wouldn't make one bit of difference as to whether or not the US goes broke.
It'd only make it take a bit longer."
Could we just start with finding the missing 2+Bn
that Rummy (would have said) went missing 9/10/01?
It might lead to more discovered missing money. Like the unaccounted Bn's sent overseas to the contractors?
Bonds, bonds, bonds, bonds, bonds, bonds, BONDS, bonds, ...... i could dub this over ol' MontyP
Oh, BTW, the recent collapse was over, wait for it... BONDS!
You're an anonymous douche
" willing to have the balls to tackle both the..." American Exceptionalism complex and perverse belief of "self" entitlements ...
"neither side is serious" they are serious about keeping their power, wealth, seat at the table...
Our struggles and sufferings are a game to these people. Chips to use in power-plays as they attempt to rise their ladder of success before getting stabbed in the back by their 'friends'.
Their game is wealth extraction. From the companies they run, from any and everybody who is not in their club. 3-houses and a pied-a-terre for he opera season; minimum. Polo and boat-drinks, served, never serving. Unless it comes with hurt.
The Pharma headlines, the Defense black-hole that makes pols go whoring for dollars, buy jobs for the hands-peeps. Guns-n-Drugs - what we do best.
We build the tools of destruction and get toxically poisoned for the priv of doing so.
This is not a U.S. phenom. It's the NWO,
non-national, non-taxable, non-accountable.
(sorta like running the perpetual dev/null drive
in an earlier story) The cleverness of it all.
I agree with you 100%
It would be more than nice to have both liberty and a commonweal strong enough to foster responsibility. It would be the miracle that happens the snake of the oppressors who peddle their "law is the hammer of the ruling class"
are finally brought to justice, some kind of justice, any kind of justice. The day that white-collar crime is thought of as more than the
the value of its shares, traded in picoseconds
while they schmooze in their backrooms.
Your insinuation that 'privatism' is a solution is false on the face of facts. In Corrections, In Edu, in Insc, BigBiz is an extraction industry.
We are it's resource. Privatizing has not proved cost-effective without fixing the numbers and skewing the data.
The same internet that enables me to telework to be part of the open/transparent movement, is the one that enables the financiers, ceos, bankers, lawyers, etc. to deal with advantages we'll never know until something hits the fan.
Maybe 8% of the world knows anything about stocks or bonds. Most american's portfolios could just as easily been the savings account offered 40yrs ago.
We are also talking about the top 8% of the population. Whose feet don't touch the ground, who are served and live like royality; often for little in exchange for the fealty. That is the picture of entitlement. Of having more than you will ever need or want for; of 'more' being your measure of success among your peers. Consume, grow, crap on something somewhere, move on...
Remove that cancer and the rest of us will happily assume control of our lives and live more responsibily, better educated, fed, treated.
Sometime between tommorrow and 1/2 past never.
Hurt demands more hurt. We as a nation are in the hurtlocker.
Great post! .gov backdoors that scan through the bytes of your life or for the corpocrats to manage and control the risks you pose:
Whether it's PHORM for the ads you see on your
IPTv settop or the
That upon which we depend will be our undoing.
I have hope the good news is that, in the long run (barring a longnow) centralized datacenters (FB) will become as antiquated as centralized computing in general. It would be easy to do but would require persuasive (political) will.
If ISP's want to play then make them permit running home servers. That's all it would take.
Let ubunut, deb, LAMPsters create a secure client-server combo dist that makes it easy to have one's own 'wall', their own ASP services...
Break the centralized 'towers' and snooping, evesdropping, spam, ads... fades to black.
Make it easy for the end-user to encrypt their communications on all their devices. OpenID, bitcoins, a candle in the spacecave
If ISP/Telco/Mediacom want their version of 'net-neutrality' then make them accept a level playing field.
Home servers are no less (perhaps more) secure than the m$ crap currently pawned. Linux and OSS will be rewarded and the abomination that is Redmond will change tune or make fuzzy toys.
I feel this will be an eventuality. I hope it comes sooner than later. My basement is getting too damp and cold.
hasn't been, but is now. And growing moreso every day:)
Nah, his punishment is living to a ripe 150 and mumbling in emacs; which all our adoring spawn will mistake for tongues. Specially enrapt with that one clear rebel-yell (gasp) of a strange and foreign word 'freedom'; long surgically removed from all "Web-ter(Tm)" word-aries (what's diction?) commercially released for non-distribution decades earlier.
Stop acting like the complete asSpie you are.
Its not about the phone, DB, its about all communications.
And to the previous "Its not the government"
poster: Of course its not!
Its the new face of industrial and corporate espionage; about private intelligence agencies (think Kroll or Carlyle) and "their" ability to fuck up your otherwise rosey day.
The fact that info is shared with their poor bureaucratic cousins is just a loss-leader.
So, stop looking at the device and start looking at the bigger conversation.
As for your beef with the word 'free'. You don't have to wrestle with the "want free - need $" hydra if you don't play their game. In proven fact, many people will choose free even if it is not as 'powerful' as commercial. And, in proven fact, it is also true that the free flavor is often better (on balance) due to the very virtues of its 'freeness'
Free-as-in:Open, non-propritary, modifyable, hackable, understandable (tax laws). It is, in proven fact, more trustworthy hence more valuable.
Which is why M$ and corpo is pushing "linux as the commie OS threat to american pie and democracy"
Which is why we tin-foilers don't even want to have to trust ourselves, let alone our wares.
If you'd stop looking at the tree and start seeing the forest, you might feel the same way too:)
And WTF? Why the abundance of AC here? Very odd and interesting and sad at the same time
Not really feelin the love, so:
Its not about your ability to write code and get money for it. Fact is, despite words to the contrary, its not about money at all.
Software is nearly free as it is. M$ gives it away
(so to speak) and the likes of sourceforge has turned code into a commodity.
"Free" got us all the way from LAMP to (say) Moodle or OpenERM. What previously fetched top dollar (programming skills) now can be had for pennies on the dollar in the 3rd World.
Certainly there will be exceptions, but that compiled shit is becomming a ubiquitous as air and water.
Now, this has no effects on YOUR RIGHTS to do what ever you want with what you make. Sell it - give it away - burn it.
But if you code for say, righthaven, then its not your code, you cant vouch for it or how it's applied. AND, almost without exception, these for-profit (only) corpo code-shops have proven they cannot be trusted. Shit, we can't even get a transparent E-voting booth. That should say it all.
Re-think your position pls.
No Stallman no GNU no GNU no Linux no Linux:
MICROCRUFT rules the world! You want evil? How about a stuxnet worm that blows a reactor?
(To say nothing of the 10's of millions held hostage to a bug-ridden OS and the slimey cohorts who profit from it at your expense.
All you gentle people throwing stones - you're MORONS!
Software and the Net have helped cause popular revolutions for anyone who has no voice. The reaction has been to take away freedoms one paper-cut at at time while surveiling and data-mining us into facism.
Here's one guy with a proven track-record of standing up, for decades, and all you sniveling retards (Anon no-less) can do is , throw verbal stones in your ignorance.
It's been Stallman-vs-BraveNewWorld since the beginning and you're only getting a preview of what the BNW holds in store.
AssHats!
Agree fully with these sentiments and am curious to know what other links may exist between .gov and corporate espionage. Not too long ago, a group was charged with stealing email lists from an NGO (sierra club? GP?) and it made me wonder if this was widespread, and if these lists were making the rounds of the 50-or-so fusion centers littering the country.
What goes on there, with select civilians being privy to DHS info? Are they reciprocating in kind by utilizing the services of outfits like HBG?
I wish anonymous would tackle the fusion centers next cuz sure as holsteins have spots, I'll bet that the 'undesirables' list (lefties, progressives, etc..) is growing and being used in HR depts across the country.
you apparently forgot to remember to remember!
Man, you're reading my mind (and prob a legion of others as well)! Force ISP's to allow their customers to run servers as part of the net-neutrality deal. Then entice end-users with an OS (or appliance) that easily and safely runs those apps you describe (self-publishing via their own servers) that eliminates the 'centrality' of places like FB and the attendant vulnerabilities.
Ubuntu, for instance, could roll out a distro that implements GPG/TLS etc.. in a user-friendly way; DYdns could provide IP, RBL checking to block spam; and, most intriguingly: private DNS servers for private sub-netting.
Furthering decentralization, to me, is the next evolution of the Net; I hope this plug gets traction.
It sure does! Image linux distros for 'comsumer consumption' whose install includes servers ....) that are sandboxed and enable the end-users to run their own 'facebook's or their own RSS feeds, etc... It would cut out the centralizers like facebook with no hit in functionality or performance; while improving privacy.
(https, smtp/tls,
The biggest feat it would accomplish would be forcing ISP's to permit customers to open up server ports. This would make the 'net-neutrality' outcomes a bit easier to reconcile.
Leveraging it to the full potential would entall forcing ISPs to allow clients to run servers. Doing so would accomplish two things: provide a balance to the net-neutrality argument and liberate peoples' dependency on sites like facebook; as their 'wall' would be internetworked directly from their own hosts. Just a matter of designing apps to do that. Where my hope would be that it would push for greater Linux adoption, having a (linux) device that does the same would be a welcome improvement to the info-society
Hi:
Just wanted to say thanks for a great UI/WM/DM
I've been using E since day 1 (literally) and continue to enjoy it. I've built from source, tho
compiling EFL and makeing edj files still somewhat eludes me. And I usually find myself still running gnome panels on the side.
But E17 has proved stable and indispensible on my workstations. I use trans-set at times and would like to see more window transparancy tools, but that's my only lament do date.
Thanks for a great contribution to OSS bud. I can't wait to see it up and running on an N900 and other mobile devices.
Hi:
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
I agree with much of what you are saying; my only
point is that the "American Dream" has become one of diminishing returns. That hard work and determination aside, things have been sliding downhill for 30 years. For every 'recession (80's, 90's, 00's..) the following recovery was only beneficial for the top sectors.
I agree that everyone, regardless of their checkbook, has the ability to contribute and that many children of the rich have used their station for good purpose. My beef was and is that it is not (necessarily) deserved, but is recognized as an entitlement.
Also, fwiw, you assertion of procuring wealth simply by satisfying a demand justifies their riches does not pass the sniff test.
Considering that many (certainly not all) of those 'originators of wealth' did so at the expense of the commonweal; from smuggling to land-grabs to calling in the strike-breakers to the genocides of indigenous.
This phenonomon continues to this day. The 'bonus' given to an oil exec for the destruction of the Niger Delta, for a simple example.
Wealth is not created in a vacuum. When both sides mutually profit, fine, its deserved. When one side is impoverished thru the use of John Perkins' economic hit men, then its immoral if not criminal.
Sad to say, the later is more pronounced than the former for most of the last century.
I agree with much of what you say related to individual potential, I just feel that the playing field is way too skewed to those who have much, much, more than they will ever need.
Be well.
Hi:
Capitalism, at least the global, multi-national, flavor, is the vision (and promise) of private ownership writ large.
Considering that roughly 95% of humanity owns no stock whatsoever is proof of its basic failure.
Capitalism is an extraction industry. It takes the resources of the many and moves it into the pockets of the few. It leaves brownfields in its' wake, sometimes very bloody ones at that.
Labor is just their means to an end and the goal of capitalism is to reduce the value of your work, your labor, as close to 0 as possible.
Good luck keeping your job in the years ahead